The present invention relates to event contest methods. Specifically, the present invention is a method for conducting a contest, the outcome of which is determined by an event or set of events, such as sporting events, where a participant selects a subset of competitors and contest winners are decided by the aggregate performance of the competitors within the participant""s subset.
There are various techniques and games known in the prior art for individuals to wager on sporting events. For example, it is known to provide what are commonly referred to as xe2x80x9crotisserie baseball leaguesxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cfantasy leaguesxe2x80x9d as described in Pearson, U.S. Pat. No. 5,971,854. In such leagues, the participants of the games select or draft the names of professional players to be on their fantasy team. During the course of the sporting season, points are awarded to each participant based on certain tracked statistics for the players selected to the participant""s team. For example, in a fantasy baseball league, statistics such as runs batted in, batting average, earned run average, strike outs and the like for each player may be tracked and used during the season to award points to the participants"" fantasy teams. The participant having the team with the greatest aggregate statistics wins the contest and, in certain embodiments, is awarded a prize. These fantasy leagues have been played many sports such as football, hockey, basketball, and the like.
Such fantasy leagues, however, do not feature wagering upon the actual outcome of one or more actual sporting events. That is, in a fantasy league, a participant selects the best players for his or her fantasy team without regard to any player""s team record because the player""s team record is irrelevant to the participant""s score. If a participant wishes to wager on the outcome of a particular sporting event, a participant must play a different game or contest.
To accommodate those wishing to wager on the outcome of a sporting event, it is known in the art for a host or casino to book futures or proposition wagers related to specified outcomes concerning certain sporting events. For purely entertainment purposes or in certain jurisdictions which permit sports wagering, it is known to provide future proposition wagers for sporting events. These include wagers on the eventual winner, the final score, or any specific statistic. As an example, a casino sports book may provide a listing of future proposition wagers and posted odds for each participating golfer in a golf tournament. A participant wishing to wager on the tournament would place a wager and select a specific golfer that the participant believes will win. Typically in exchange for the wager, the participant will receive a ticket or stub indicating that the wager has been made. If the golfer wins, the participant claims his reward by presenting the ticket stub. The participant is paid at the posted odds.
Another form of this common wager available at casino sports books, for example, is a wager on the outcome of a particular game. To maintain parity on both sides of the wager, that is, to insure that gamblers are more or less equally divided between two competing teams, casinos utilize mechanisms such as a point spread or odds. The point spread is a number calculated by the casino to be the winning margin. For example, if a gambler wagers on a game in which Team A is favored by five points, five points is the point spread. For the gambler to win the wager, Team A must not only win, but must additionally win by more than five points. If Team A loses or wins by five or fewer points, the gambler loses the wager.
With respect to the examples discussed above, there are several aspects of the wager according to the prior art which increase the gambler""s risk. First and foremost is that sport books treat each game or tournament as a separate event. In other words, unless the participant plays parlay cards, as described hereinafter, wagers on different games are resolved separately. For example, a participant that wagers on five football games must select five winners to win all five wagers.
To alleviate this problem somewhat, parlay cards have been created to reduce the participant""s risk. In a parlay card, a participant selects the winners for a predetermined number of games. For example, in a ten game parlay, a participant selects the winners in ten different games. If the participant correctly selects a predetermined number of winners, the player is rewarded. In the example above, ten correct out of ten selections may entitle a participant to a first prize, nine correct out of ten selections may entitle a participant to a second prize, and so forth.
One drawback of parlay cards is that parlay cards still utilize point spreads. Thus, as stated above, it is not enough to project the winner, but a participant must also project whether the winner will beat the point spread. The point spread is often a source of frustration for sports bettors for the very reason that a participant may correctly select the winning team but the winning team may not beat the point spread, resulting in a loss of the wager. Thus, it is often disadvantageous for a participant to select a xe2x80x9csure thingxe2x80x9d because the point spread associated with that game or event is calculated by the sports book to be sizeable to attract wagers on both sides. Even in sports not utilizing a point spread, such as golf tournaments or horse racing, odds are used to encourage gamblers to allocate wagers among several different possible winners. These limitations and drawbacks exists for many sports or events such as horse racing, e.g. future propositions as to the horse which will win, place or show at the Kentucky Derby, team sports such as hockey, soccer, baseball and basketball, basketball tournaments such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (xe2x80x9cNCAAxe2x80x9d) basketball tournament, golf tournaments, Olympic events and other events where a favorite must overcome a point spread or poor odds to result in a winning wager.
Therefore, it can be seen that there is a need in the art for an event contest system the outcome of which is determined by the outcome of an event in which participants are encouraged to allocate their selections among several different possible outcomes without resort to point spreads or odds.
The contest of the present invention includes a participant selecting, from a finite pool of competitors, a subset consisting of a predetermined number of competitors. As examples, each participant may select five golfers from the entrants in a golf tournament or five football teams that the participant expects to win from a pool of twenty football games, that is, forty football teams. In an embodiment including head to head competition, a participant may be excluded from selecting competitors competing head to head. Thus, in the example above, participants wagering on golf could select any five golfers from the finite pool of entrants whereas participants wagering on football would be excluded from selecting both competitors in a single football game.
At a predetermined point in the sporting event or events, such as after the sporting event or events are completed, an outcome is generated by calculating an index for each participant. Each index is calculated by summing a statistic generated during the sporting event or events for each of the participant""s selections. For example, in an optional embodiment, the statistic may be the margin of victory. Alternatively, the statistic used may be the score. The participants are ordered by index and a predetermined number of participants are awarded prizes. In the event of a tie, the tied participants"" selections are compared and one or more selections differentiating the participants"" subsets are determined. Tied participants are then ordered according to the statistic for the differentiating selection. In a further optional embodiment, participants rank their selections and tied indexes are resolved by comparing the statistics in the order of the ranked selections. Again, tied participants are then ordered according to the statistic for the differentiating ranked selection. In other words, if two or more participants have the same index, the statistics for the tied participants"" ranked selections are compared.
In an optional embodiment, the reward is pari-mutual. That is, in an optional embodiment, the wagers are pooled, a percentage is deducted from the pooled wagers to be retained by the contest operator, and the remaining pool is divided among the winner or winners.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for operating a contest in which participants select a subset from a finite pool of competitors in an event, the winning participant determined by the cumulative performance of the subset during an event.